


Sometimes Darkness

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Yesterday, they saved the galaxy. Now, Anakin has no clue what comes next.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Sometimes Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yujacheong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/gifts).



Yesterday, they saved the galaxy. Now, Anakin has no clue what comes next. 

\---

It wasn't technically an order, but that really didn't make it seem any less like an order. 

"We can say no," Obi-Wan said, with a carefully neutral expression on his face, like he didn't want to give anything away about his actual opinion on the matter. The trouble with Obi-Wan was that even before they did what they did, he was more or less an open book; Anakin was pretty sure the expression on his face was not actually neutral and gave everything away. 

"Do you want to say no?" Anakin replied. 

"What I want doesn't matter." 

Obi-Wan turned away. He patted his hair, as if he ever had a hair out of place now he'd had it cut so neatly, and he sighed as he went to the window. They were standing in the council room and from the window it was like they could see all of Coruscant, and like Coruscant was all the universe, bustling with people. 

"If you want to say no, Anakin, say no," he said. "I doubt you're the only person in the galaxy I can work with." 

"You mean you'd find someone else?"

Obi-Wan rested both hands against the transparisteel window and looked at him over his shoulder. "Yes," he said. 

"Is that what you want?"

"What I want doesn't--"

"Is that what you _want_?"

He sighed. His mouth twisted wryly then he turned back to the window. "No," he said. "But you know the risks. You know the... _complications_ that can arise. I can't ask you to--"

"You didn't ask. The council did."

"You know what I mean, Anakin. Don't be obtuse."

He turned and he pressed his back to the glass and crossed his arms over his chest. Anakin grimaced. 

"I think it's time you took your own advice, Master Kenobi," he said, then took a breath and huffed it out exasperatedly. "If you're doing this, I'm doing this. Who else is going to put up with you?" He went closer. He raised his eyebrows pointedly. "Master Windu? _Master Yoda_?"

Obi-Wan's wry smile turned a fraction warmer. He nodded faintly and when Anakin stepped up beside him, he turned again. He put his hand on Anakin's shoulder and squeezed here what Anakin was sure was meant to be reassuringly. It didn't feel too reassuring. 

Two years earlier, through a rift that science at the time said just wasn't possible, a creature had appeared that had ravaged an entire planet before help could arrive. A month later, another had come; that time the system had been less remote and better armed, but half of its primary world had still been dust and ash before they'd killed the creature and halted its assault. Another had come after that, then another, _another_ , and the war ground to a halt because of it. They'd suspected the Separatists had created the creatures, but then the next had attacked Koru Neimoidia. The scientists had begun to work together to find out where they came from, and to find a way to stop them. 

Now, they had a plan. Now, they had a weapon. After a few initial failures and subsequent refinements, after more tests than they'd really had the time to run and more disasters than they could afford, Obi-Wan had been the one they'd chosen to step up. Obi-Wan and his choice of partner, at least, assuming they had enough compatibility. Obi-Wan would do it because he wanted to do the right thing, but in that moment all Anakin could think about was Obi-Wan's hand resting warmly at his shoulder. 

"The ship's waiting," he said. Obi-Wan nodded, and they headed for the door. 

Anakin's motive wasn't moral. He just couldn't let it be anyone else. 

\---

They had less than two weeks to get ready, the experts said. Of course, no one had been an expert before just over a year before that, more than a year after it had started, so Anakin really wasn't sure what he should believe. 

They were shuttled out to the shipyards at Anaxes where the thing was being built and he remembers looking out of the viewport in their quarters and finally understanding just how he'd underestimated its scale. He'd seen the creatures, up close and personal; he'd flown an X-wing with a squadron of clones in two attacks by then while Obi-Wan was in command of the fleet and he still wasn't sure if it was luck or the Force that had got them both out alive. They'd lost two destroyers in the second attack, with not quite all their crew, and Anakin knew Obi-Wan blamed himself. He thought maybe that was why he'd agreed to this, like he was looking for redemption when what he'd done was the best anyone could have. Or maybe he really was just that full up with a sense of duty, or maybe he didn't trust anyone else to do it in his place. 

He'd seen two of the creatures in combat but the thing they'd built still seemed so big it was impossible. From the viewport looking out at it docked there at the orbital shipyard, it seemed almost as big as the planet was, with arms and legs and a huge head, like a droid on a scale he'd never even dreamed of. The designers were calling it the _Jaeger_ class, mark four because one to three had failed. That didn't inspire confidence. 

"Well, that's not something you see every day," Obi-Wan said, as he rested one hand on one of Anakin's shoulders and leaned in close to peer over the other. He was warm, and close, and smelled like the spicy Mirialan shampoo he liked that Anakin kept teasing him really wasn't Temple-issue. It reminded him of ruffling Obi-Wan's perfectly styled hair as they'd been doing recon on some Force-forsaken desert planet in the Outer Rim that would've reminded him of Tatooine if its sun hadn't been red. He remembered how Obi-Wan had reacted, trying to bat his hands away while scolding him, but he really hadn't tried that hard. He remembered tangling his fingers in it, the real ones, making a loose fist in it, and how Obi-Wan had leaned his head back as he'd looked at him. It was the latest in a long line of moments like it that they'd spent so long trying to ignore.

Standing there over Anaxes with Obi-Wan's chest just a hair's breadth from pressing to his back, he wondered what might have happened that day in the desert if instead of moving back, he'd stepped in closer. Obi-Wan had stopped fighting him; Anakin wondered if he would've fought what he'd wanted to do next. 

Anakin rolled his eyes at Obi-Wan's cliché, but he didn't hide his smile. And, forty standard minutes later, they landed at their destination on the surface, disembarked and went inside. 

They were met at the airlock by the base commander and one of their lead scientists who started to go through the relevant particulars as they walked, but Anakin found himself just tuning out. They walked, the clunk-clunk-clunk of boots against metal gantries brighter in Anakin's mind than what Commander Jori or Dr Vith were saying, passing workers in a variety of different colored coveralls all in a hurry to get where they were going. Anakin guessed he understood that: they were on a schedule, and missing the mark meant maybe another planet in ruins.

Jori was small and wispy and a bureaucrat through and through, apparently assigned to the project thanks to years' experience overseeing ship design for the Republic's fleet. He seemed to talk a lot without saying very much, as far as Anakin could tell when he periodically checked in on the conversation, like so many Navy middle-managers. Vith, on the other hand, was tall and wiry with close-cropped hair and a limp she covered pretty well, most of the time, except when climbing stairs. 

There were enough rooms in the base that they didn't really have to share, but sharing seemed to be what their hosts had assumed; maybe it was because they were Jedi or maybe it was something else entirely, and Anakin didn't feel much like questioning it. But they were shown into quarters in the hastily-assembled station orbiting the planet - the room was small but not as small as they'd had to use before, with beds that Anakin was pretty sure were going to have Obi-Wan complaining about his back by morning, especially since the mattresses had probably never had anyone else sleep on them before. Everything seemed new. Thrown-together, but new. Anakin guessed they really hadn't had a contingency for the kaiju, so this was what they had. 

"We'll begin in the morning," Dr Vith said, as she hovered by the door. "Get some rest. It might be the last you'll have for some time." Obi-Wan nodded, and he thanked her, then she left; she closed the door behind her and left them there alone. 

"Don't you think that was a bit melodramatic?" Anakin said, as he dropped his bag to the floor and sprawled on top of his bedsheets. He'd picked the one on the left hand side, mostly because he remembered Obi-Wan had always picked the one on the right, and he'd always wondered if that was his choice or if maybe Qui-Gon had liked the left. He'd teased him about his attachment sometimes, but they'd never switched. 

"I think she's been doing this much longer than we have," Obi-Wan replied. "She was one of the first pilots." 

Anakin winced. He guessed at least that explained the limp - mark one to three hadn't ended well. And then he placed the name: Anisa Vith. He covered his face with his pillow and groaned into it; maybe that was more dramatic than she had been. 

But when he went to sleep that first night on the station, he dreamed about the old mark ones. He dreamed about Anisa Vith and her co-pilot who died in space before anyone could get to him. He didn't know if what he dreamed was true - sometimes that was how it worked and sometimes it was just pulled out of his imagination - but it got the point across. 

If he'd lost Obi-Wan, he was pretty sure he'd've turned dramatic, too.

\---

Training, it turned out, wasn't as hard as they'd expected. 

Dr Vith put them through their paces to see if they were ready for the physical strain; maybe it was because they'd trained as Jedi, and then they'd lived as Jedi, and they'd been fighting in a war that felt like it'd been going on since before he could remember even before the kaiju had come, but Anakin felt like he could've kept going for hours and Obi-Wan wasn't far behind. They ran circuits of the station - it was built in two concentric circles, one inside the other, with a long straight arm that protruded down from the center where the Jaeger was docked - and they'd run the outer circle four times in their black pilot jumpsuits before Dr Vith stopped them. 

"Perhaps we should have always used Jedi," she said, as she ushered them into the lab. Anakin looked at Obi-Wan, who raised his brows significantly; Anakin took the hint and didn't respond but he was definitely wondering why they hadn't. 

The technical portion of the introduction really wasn't so bad, either. Dr Vith and a couple of her team sat them down and talked through the Jaeger technology; Anakin followed without too much trouble, and Obi-Wan frowned every now and then but he seemed to get it, too. What Anakin took from it was two fold: first, it was only humans who could pilot a Jaeger, something about the specifically human neuroanatomy and how deviation from that made interface impossible. They'd tested the tech with clones and found something about the Kaminoan cloning process precluded their involvement, too. So, humans it was. 

Secondly: well, that just confirmed everything he'd heard before about how the process worked, before they'd even arrived. Rex and Fives had been involved in the first tests and when they'd come back after, they'd told stories about the scientists who'd been there, too - the Jaeger was too much for one person to control alone and they'd figured out a way to share it, but that technology came with a price. It bonded them together, while they were in the drift, till some of them were still connected out of it. Anakin, for his part, wasn't sure how much he wanted Obi-Wan inside his head, but he wasn't going to let Obi-Wan have anyone else inside his. 

After lunch, and more than an hour lecturing the two of them on kaiju biology like they had anything to say that was more than _each one's different_ , Dr Vith had them fight each other. She threw them each a wooden sword, like the younglings used for training at the Temple, and Anakin remembers laughing as he swung it; he was standing there barefoot on the exercise mats in a jumpsuit that looked more like it belonged to a Sith than a Jedi, watching Obi-Wan feel the weight of the sword in his own hand, and it seemed kind of absurd. They hadn't really fought each other in years, not even for training - they got enough practice from the war, or with Ahsoka. Dr Vith narrowed her eyes at him disapprovingly and Obi-Wan shook his head, but he did a poor job of not looking amused. 

And then, they fought. Dr Vith had told them it wasn't about winning or losing, it was about demonstrating their potential for compatibility; sure, so maybe Anakin found it difficult to stomp down his competitive side, but he couldn't say he didn't understand the idea. The Jedi had ideas like that, too, after all - sometimes a lightsaber duel was more like meditation than a fight, if you let yourself go. And it was easy with Obi-Wan. Anakin knew him so well and when they started to fight, when the sticks in their hands collided and vibrated all the way down into his arms, when they sprang back into position, it was all just so familiar. 

He knew where Obi-Wan would go next and Obi-Wan knew Anakin's next move, too. He jumped; Obi-Wan jumped, too; their swords collided. He rolled; Obi-Wan ran; they swept one another down. Obi-Wan landed squarely on top of him and knelt there, straddling his thighs, sweat on his skin making his hair stick to his forehead, and while they sat there like that, catching their breath, while Dr Vith gave her critique. There wasn't much, and Anakin was grateful for that. He'd never taken pointers on his technique with Obi-Wan Kenobi sitting on top of him before, and it really didn't help how quickly his heart beat. 

"We'll put you in the drift tomorrow," Dr Vith said, apparently satisfied with their performance, as Obi-Wan pushed back up onto his feet.

He held out a hand and Anakin took it, and Obi-Wan pulled him up, too. They looked at each other, one hand each still wrapped around each other's wrist. Obi-Wan's face was pink across his cheekbones and his hair was out of place so Anakin reached up to pat it back down. Obi-Wan flinched, and stepped back, and turned to Dr Vith. 

"We'll see you bright and early, Doctor," he told her. And his voice was calm but Anakin could feel he wasn't. He could _see_ he wasn't; he didn't need to feel it in the Force.

Dr Vith nodded. They left. Later, Anakin ducked into the showers in the big communal 'fresher thankfully just as Obi-Wan was leaving them. When he got back to their shared quarters, Obi-Wan was feigning sleep, but that was fine; he didn't want to talk, either. 

By the end of the following day, they didn't need to anymore. 

\---

In the morning, they walked into the lab not long after breakfast. Twenty minutes later, Anakin ran into the 'fresher and threw his breakfast straight back up again. 

They didn't have long to get ready for the next kaiju to come through, and the previous day had been pretty easy, Anakin thought, except maybe the awkward end with Obi-Wan. He'd known it didn't really matter even at the time, though - they'd had moments like that before, over the years, and they'd always gotten through them. In fact, by the morning, it was like nothing had happened, and they'd eaten together in the base refectory sitting opposite across an old durasteel table whose surface had been polished shiny with years of use - Anakin had found himself rubbing at it, too, as they ate and didn't talk about what they were about to do. 

He remembers thinking it was probably going to be fine. It wasn't like people died from the drift and it wasn't like there was anything about him that Obi-Wan didn't basically already know; he knew where Anakin had come from and knew the life he'd had there, knew what really hadn't gone to plan with Padmé, knew all of his frustrations with the Order and the life he'd chosen without really knowing what the choice was except _better than slavery_. And Obi-Wan had to know what Anakin felt about him wasn't strictly in line with the Jedi code. But he guessed there was a difference between knowing it in theory and really _knowing_ it. 

They ate breakfast together like so many times before then they went down to Dr Vith's lab. She ushered them together, to two backlit medical bays where they hopped up and lay down. A couple of well-placed electrodes stuck to their temples to hook them up to her machines and that was it; "This will feel...strange," she said, then flipped the switch. 

It felt strange. Anakin had thought he'd been prepared and for a start he thought he'd been right; he felt like he was in two places at once, like he'd been split in two then stitched back together except the stitches were...wide. Maybe that was what Dr Vith had meant - he could feel Obi-Wan on the next bed, like he would if he could if he concentrated and reached out in the Force. Maybe that was what Dr Vith had meant, but then it changed. He could feel Obi-Wan's fingers pressing to the smooth plasteel and how tense his shoulders felt. He could feel Obi-Wan's jaw clenching. And when he opened his eyes and they looked at each other, it felt like looking at himself. 

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, and he could feel it when he spoke, like he'd done it himself. Anakin ran into the 'fresher and threw up his breakfast. He could feel how concerned Obi-Wan was even as his head spun. 

Anakin couldn't be near him for the rest of the day but he couldn't be far away, either. It turned out Dr Vith _hadn't_ meant that - Anakin sat there in the lab with her while Obi-Wan was in their quarters and she explained it to him like she'd just explained it to Obi-Wan and he didn't need to hear it again because he'd just heard it through Obi-Wan. He zoned out, trying to concentrate on not seeing the beds with their uncomfortable mattresses and their bare steel walls. It wasn't like she could tell him anything about what was happening, after all; she seemed as baffled as they were. 

He took new quarters, but eight doors away felt too far - there was a tug inside him, in his chest, pulling taut, and the commander moved out the personnel next door, thankfully only just arrived themselves, so Anakin could sleep in there. He was at the far side of the wall from where Obi-Wan was lying, so they both still had their usual sides and Anakin rested his forehead there against the wall and closed his eyes and breathed. In the next room, Obi-Wan did the same. When Obi-Wan said his name again, he couldn't hear him, but that didn't seem to make a difference. 

When Obi-Wan pressed his hand against the wall, Anakin did the same. 

\---

In the morning, they fought. Dr Vith wanted to know what difference their new connection made, and they didn't have long left to get things ready. They left their shoes by the edge of the mat and took their sticks. 

It was different. Everything was different. Anakin felt it when their sticks collided but not just in his own arms. Anakin felt the tension in Obi-Wan's arms as he swung. There was no Force assistance, no cartwheels or somersaults, just feet on the ground and sticks in their hands and the power of their own bodies behind them and it was _different_ , not graceful, nothing Jedi about it, Anakin's pulse racing or maybe it was Obi-Wan's and they moved, faster, _faster_ , teeth bared, knuckles white. Anakin couldn't catch his breath and Obi-Wan's foot slipped and Anakin dropped his stick, reached out, caught him by his arms and kept him on his feet. Being closer felt better. Tensing his jaw was all he could do to stop himself pressing his face into Obi-Wan's neck and the look on Obi-Wan's face said he knew it. 

That afternoon, they boarded the Jaeger for the first time and when they strapped in, side by side, in the control pod, when they reached out with the Force at the exact same time, it went better than they could've hoped. The Jaeger performed perfectly. So did they. Anakin was glad for the distraction but afterwards, when they were out of the drift, they still weren't apart; lying in their separate rooms, he could still feel that pull inside. 

In the morning, they fought, like that might improve things but it didn't. In the afternoon, they trained in the Jaeger, making tweaks to the setup and performance. At night, they stood at their doors and didn't look at each other as they went inside. Anakin could feel everything that Obi-Wan felt and when he pressed his forehead down against the wall and slipped one hand down between his thighs, when he stroked himself, he knew Obi-Wan could feel it, too. 

Four days passed. Six. Nine. Their preparations progressed. And then, yesterday, the kaiju came. 

Yesterday, they saved the galaxy; they took the Jaeger right into the breach with one giant hand wrapped around the kaiju's neck and took it down. 

Yesterday, they saved the galaxy. Now, Anakin has no clue what comes next. 

\---

It's the morning after the celebration that Anakin couldn't feel like he was a part of. He stands outside the door of Obi-Wan's quarters and he hesitates but that's not important; Obi-Wan knows he's there, and he opens the door. 

"Anakin," he says, and the way he looks at him says everything. Anakin knows, because he can feel it, too. And so he goes inside. 

"I don't know," Obi-Wan tells him. Anakin frowns. "You keep wondering _what next_. I don't know." 

But that's fine. Suddenly, he knows it doesn't matter. He takes Obi-Wan by the front of his Sith-black overalls and steps in close and as he presses up against him, as he slips his fingers up into his hair, he knows Obi-Wan understands. Because every night, in bed, he'd felt the way his pulse beat harder as he felt Anakin stroke himself. He'd felt the way his cock would get hard, too. 

Neither of them know where this is going. But fact is that they're going there together.


End file.
